But, well, summer has finally arrived in Germany! And guess what – with summer being here right now, my exam period is starting… what a great timing. Sitting inside and studying while the weather is absolutely awesome is hard for me.

However, this is not about my exams, this is about food! Yummy, delicious, vegan food! And so… there’s nothing better in summer than a no-bake cake. A refreshing, delicious, cool, no bake cake. So, that’s exactly what I made. I remembered the Vanilla-Mandarine-Pudding cake that my grandma used to make when I was still very little. Inspired by that awesome food combination, I thought of a light, cool and vegan summer version of this cake. Here it is.

Trust me, it is delicious! An unexpected discovery with this cake was the crust, which I just whipped up pretty spontaneously, not knowing that it would taste SO great! I had some left-over dough from the crust and I just formed it into little balls and snacked on them – so yummy!

Yogurt-Mandarine Vanilla Cake
Ø about 18cm / 7 inches

For the crust

one cup muesli (just regular muesli, nothing fancy and NO granola)

2 tbsp almond butter

2-4 tbsp agave syrup

2 tbsp flax seed

pinch of salt (optional)

For the filling

1 can mandarines (ca. 300g / 10.5 ounces)

650g vanilla soy yogurt

2 packages agartine (german product) OR two tsp agar agar powder

For the crust: Put the muesli, almond butter flax and agave in your blender or food processor. Mix until it sticks together, adding more agave if it’s too dry and more muesli if it’s too sticky. Press the mixture into a round pan lined with baking paper.

For the filling: Pour the can (fruit + juice!) in a pot and stir in agar agar. Bring it to a boil for about 2 minutes. Pour the vanilla yogurt into a bowl and mix in the mandarine mixture, using a whisk. You want some of the little mandarine segments to separate, that’s what makes the cake great in my opinion. Pour the mixture into the spring pan, let it cool down completely. Store into your refrigerator.

“Hey… you forgot to say something!!!”
– Oh, yeah, sure… well, you don’t have to use store bought vanilla yogurt. Actually, it’s quite easy to make your own! Just scratch out the inside of one vanilla bean and add sweetener to taste. You can create a yellow color by either using curcuma or saffron.

And I’ve made and tasted quite a few by know.
As they usually consist of dried fruit and nuts, they tend to be quite dense and sometimes, they make you feel kind of heavy.

This one is different. It’s still a raw cake, it’s still not an exact copy of the original (anyway, if I want to taste a baked carrot cake, I’ll just bake one!). But it is not as dense and heavy as most raw cakes out there! It’s easier on the stomach and tastes great – what else could you wish for!

Another thing I love about this cake: The frosting is without cashews. Cashew-free frosting!!! I like cashews, that’s not it. But I like to change up things every once in a while.

There you go – the princess is cutting the cake!

RAW Carrot Cake

For the cake:

1 large carrot

3/4 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup dates

1/2 cup dried pineapple or apricots

1/4 cup coconut shreds

1/2 tsp cinnamon

optional: 1/4 teaspoon cardamom

optional: dash of ground gloves, nutmeg, allspice and salt

For the frosting:

1/4 cup coconut butter

about 4 big pieces dried mango (of course, the amount depends on the size of your mango pieces. If the flavor is not intense enough, blend in more mango!)

1/8 tsp ground vanilla

1 tsp coconut oil

1 tsp lemon juice

water as needed (start with 1/4 cup)

optional: dash of salt

For the cake: cut carrots into small chunks. Then throw all ingredients, including the carrots, in your food processor or high speed blender and pulse until it sticks together. Use your hands to for a round cake! You could also use a spring pan or tartlet pans, too. However, I kept it simple and just formed small, round cakes by hand.

For the frosting: Blend all the ingredients in you high speed blender until smooth, adding just enough water to create a smooth and creamy (and delicious!) frosting.

Assembly: That’s totally up to you! You could make a two layer cake, like I did. Put frosting on the first cake base, add the second one and cover the whole cake with frosting. You could also use your icing bag.

“naked” carrot cakes with just a little mango creamcheese icing. Honestly, that icing is divine…

Oh, of course, a princess always gets what she wants. Here’s her piece of the cake!

A fun last minute idea for Easter. And for people who like bunnies. Or Alice in Wonderland. Or both (me, me, me! ).

Actually, it’s really rather a very simple idea. I used my to-go Chocolate Cake recipe with this, cause it never fails and it’s been tested at so many birthday parties… But you could use your favorite recipe just as well.

I’m really in love with this idea. However, I’m not sure whether we’ll ever be able to cut this cake… it’s just too cute!

Look, the bunny already made friends at our house…

The “fur” is made from shredded coconut. I used a simple royal icing to make it stick. I guess a cream icing would look better cause it really covers the chocolate cake and you’d have a white base for the coconut, so no brown cake shines through. However… the way I did it, it tasted better. We just don’t like to much heavy and sugary icing on our cake… so this is a good compromise! I just used a thin layer of icing for the bow.

blue icing (or any other color, could use this recipe made with blue food color)

black icing (again, you can use the recipe liked above or use your favorite one)

little pink sugar hearts for the nose (or pink icing)

For the cake: Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix. Add water and oil and stir until combined. Pour into two greased, round baking pans and bake for about 30 min (180 C / 360 F)

Let the cake cool down before you cut it like this:

Decoration: Mix shredded coconut (just one or two hands!) with pink food colors. If you’re using Wilton gel colors, like I did, add a tiny little bit of water for even coloring). Mix icing sugar, corn starch and water until smooth. Apply this icing to the “face” and “ears”. Decorate the middle of the ears with pink shredded coconut, the face and the rest of the ears with white shredded coconut.

Cover the bow with colored icing of your choice. I used a chocolate button for the middle of the bow.
Use sugar hearts or pink icing as a nose and draw the face with black icing.

That’s it!

Note: You could also use 400g whole wheat or 400 all purpose flour. I tried both, it still works and tastes good! However, the recipe tastes best when you use some whole wheat flour (even if you’re not concerned about it’s health benefits and so on). Cocoa and whole wheat flour yields a really nice and rich flavor!

Bunny, grinning like a Cheshire Cat ;)

I love it when simple things actually look good. And if you’re a little more skilled and patient than I am (and it’s really nor hard to be more patient then me!) it could look even better!

Black Forest Cake is a very traditional cake from Germany. A real classic. Something that definitely has to be “veganized”! Yes, many people think that German food and Veganism go as much together as… punk rock and the Black Forest area.
Let me tell you something: They definitelly go together! People didn’t even notice that my cake was vegan. 1 : 0 for vegan cake!

The Germans even have a special word for cream cakes like this: “Torte”. Yes, they love cream cakes. They hardly ever use icing, cream is much more common.

I usually don’t like the combination of fruit and chocolate… with just a few exceptions! This cake is one of them. Oh, it was my Mom’s birthday cake, by the way…

Ring of fire cherries!

Don’t be afraid:
Yes, you do need more then one day to make this cake. But it’s a cake you won’t make every week, so that’s fine! Don’t worry, it’s really easier then you might think!

Day 1: Prepare the cake layers and the short crust
Mix all the ingredients for the cake layers in a big bowl. Don’t overmix!
Put the batter in an oiled pan (about 24 cm or 9,5 inches) and bake for about 40 minutes (350 F / 180 C)

Short crust: Mix all the ingredients for the short crust. Press the dough into the buttom of an oiled pan (24 cm or 9,5 inches). Bake for about 25 min (350 F / 180 C)

Day 2: Filling and decoration
Whip the soyatoo and add sweetener to taste. Put the cream in the refrigerator.
Boil the cherries (juice and fruit) with the agar agar and corn starch for about two minutes (don’t use a microwave!). Let the filling cool down for a little while (it should not be firm yet).
Now you need a cake ring or the ring of a springform pan.
Place the cake ring on a big plate or baking tray. Put the short crust into the ring. This is the button layer. The cake ring should stand loosely around the short crust.
Put some cherry juice on top of the crust and let it cool down. Work slowly and wait until the juice get firm. This layer can be really thin (2-3 mm / 0,1 inch).
Now you can add your first layer of cream (about 1 centimeter / 0,4 inch).
Cut the chocolate cake you made the day before into two halves, using a big and sharp knive, so you have two round cake layers. Put the first cake layer on top of the cream layer.
Now you add the cherries. Place them on top of the chocolate cake layer. You can also add some of the juice if you want. Now there’s another cream layer. Fill in the space within the cherries with the cream. Add the second cake layer. Now your almost done! Cote the cake with the rest of the cream. Decorate the cake with chocolate flakes and 12-14 cherries.
Important: The cake tastes much better if you let it sit in the refrigerator for one night!

In the process: Decorating the cake!

Note: The traditional recipe calls for cherry brandy (“Kirschwasser”) – I just left it out cause I don’t like it… Feel free to sprinkle some cherry brandy on the cake layers if you want to.

This was a birthday cake – I definitelly won’t make cakes like this every day… Also, it was the first big cream layer cake I made – it’s easier than I thought it would be! And so yummy!

A (bad cell phone) picture of the different layers. There was not much time to take pictures of our food at the party and I didn’t want to cut the cake before serving…

Finally: The cake from the header. Yes, I know, you had to wait quite a while for this. And some people have asked me about it. Well… here it is!

Don’t worry, he got his peace of the cake!
It was my birthday cake this year. I wanted a summery light and refreshing cake. A cake that doesn’t make you feel yucky after one peace. As it was summer, it was obvious that there had to be a lot of fruit in this cake!

So, that was all I knew before I made the cake: A lot of fruit, some yogurt and a vanilla cream. Yes, I can work with that. The result: Very Berry Vanilla Yogurt Cake.
Creativity can be so yummy!

Mix Graham crackers and Earth Balance in a bowl. Use your fingers to press the mixture evenly into the buttom of your plate.
Now prepare the Vanilla Cream: Prepare the Vanilla pudding according to the instructions, but use half a cup of creamer (or coconut milk) and half a cup of soy milk. Pour the pudding on top of the crust and let it cool down in the refrigerator.
Time to prepare the yogurt layer! Blend the mixed berries. Put the blended berries in a pot and boil them up with the agar agar (don’t forget to stir a lot!). Finally, mix the yogurt and the warm berry mixture in a bowl. Add sweetener to taste (you cold either use stevia, xylit, cane or coconut sugar. Don’t use liquid sweetener cause the yogurt might get thick if you do) Pour the yogurt berry mixture in your pan on top of the vanilla cream. Let the cake cool down in the refrigerator (it takes about 6 hours for the agar agar be completely thick. Don’t remove the cake from the pan before completely cooled down.)
Once the cake is firm and cooled down, you can remove it from the pan and decorate it! Be creative! (Remember: Being creative can be really yummy!)

I think my little friends have discovered something in my kitchen…

And here’s a piece of the cake with both it’s layers.

Just to give you an idea what it looked like!
You can use any kind of yogurt and any kind of milk you want. However, I’d recommend to weight the yogurt and the berries. Weighting the ingredients is more exact and will yield to the best results when using agar agar.

Have you ever made a vegan yogurt cake? (Or: Have you ever made a yogurt cake in the first place?) You should! It’s fun and it’s delicious!

So you can easily guess what was the girls and what the boys ate at the party…

Not a single guy dared to eat a pink cupcakes… well, they missed out on something great. If you ever want to keep your cupcakes from your boyfriend or other male people, you know what to do: treat them to a pink frosting!

Busy days! I’ve been making a birthday cake, pink cupcakes (tomorrow’s post) and my first homemade seitan sausages…! The later ones are not pictured (yet) cause they taste way better than they look…

Oh, talking about looks! I’ve actually never decorated a cake the fancy way. Until now, cake decoration was arranging fruit, cream, nuts or chocolate on a cake. I’ve never used fondant! Actually, living in Germany, I think that’s the “American way of cake decoration”, even though people start using it here more and more, too. Those copycats.

However, you can’t just walk into a store and buy fondant here! You’ll have to be creative and do it yourself. Okay, I was a little lazy. I used almond paste (marzipan) instead. That again is not so readily available in the US. I know you can find in big grocery stores though, sold in tubes or cans.
Almond paste might be the German fondant. It’s tastes more like almonds, of course and it’s less sweet.

So, that’s what I did. Using natural food colors and almond paste!

Yes, it is nerdish. It’s supposed to be. Look at the sweet little dragon! And please take into account that almond paste is much harder to form and more sticky than fondant and natural food colors aren’t as bright. Plus it’s my first cake of that kind… I like it. Fluffy cake layers filled with a chocolate butter cream. I ate way too much cream while making and filling the cake! It’s worth it.

One more. Because I like it.

Level up! Kill the monster, steal the treasure, stab your friends. Something like that. Not those friends who can make cake though.
I guess I’m lucky…

Here’s the recipe!

Fluffy cake layers

300g (2 1/3 cups) all purpose flour

50g (1/3 cup) corn starch

150g (3/4 cup) sugar

ca. 450ml (2 cups) almond milk

Vanilla extrakt or vanilla sugar

2 tsp baking powder

Mix everything together using a hand mixer or food processor! Line a backing pan (I used a 20 cm / 8 inch ) with baking paper. You can grease the bottom but you should line the side of the pan cause the fat can prevent the cake from rising or pull the cake down again when melting.
Bake for about 25 min at 350F (200C).
Check the oven in between, every oven is different!

Let it cool down completely until you cut it into two halves.

Filling

1 cup / 200g margarine or vegan butter

3 tbsp cocoa powder, unsweetened

confectioners sugar

Mix the butter and the cocoa with your hand mixer. Add confectioners sugar. I didn’t measure the confectioners sugar. Actually, there is no perfect amount. Just add enough to make the cream a little thicker and as sweet as you like!

Guard the cake from hungry monsters (do you remember those old lego dragons?).

This is how my cake looked from the inside. It’s just a cell phone pic, but there was no other opportunity to make a better picture at the party, cause the cake didn’t last for too long! (Oh, and please don’t worry about birthday cakes not being overly healthy. It’s just once a year! And all the fun while making and eating it will totally make up for that!)